How Pricing Hourly Could be Hurting Your Biz w/ Marie Coleman-Johns of Maiden September

"We are very into thriving artists."

Alex and Cat bring on guest Marie Coleman-Johns of Maiden September to discuss some of the nuances of pricing as full time event artists.

While all three began their creative business journey as hourly-based artists, they’ve all shifted to package pricing, noting just how valuable their services are as event calligraphers and artists. They discuss the transition, the benefits, the challenges, when and when not to implement the practice, how it’s beneficial to clients, and the overall impact to the calligraphy community.

The key takeaway? Education and practice are essential for building confidence in pricing.

Feeling like you want support? Marie is creating an upcoming mini-course aimed at helping calligraphers navigate pricing strategies effectively. Join her waitlist here.

Transcript

Alex (00:12)
To Keeping Up With The Calligraphers, I'm Alex of Signs Are Our Lives

Cat (00:16)
I'm Cat of Cat Lauren Calligraphy.

Alex (00:17)
And we are

joined by...

Marie (00:20)
You know I mean, say?

Alex (00:21)
Yeah!

Marie (00:22)
my God. Okay, take two.

Alex (00:23)
Have a great start.

And we're joined by.

Marie (00:26)
Marie Coleman-Johns of Maiden September.

Alex (00:29)
Yay,

we're so excited to have you here. We're so, so honored.

Marie (00:32)
I'm so excited to be here.

Everyone can tell already that we've been just cracking up offline prior to starting to record.

Alex (00:39)
No,

my cheeks already hurt, which is crazy. Okay, so today we're going to be discussing how pricing hourly could be hurting your business. But before we talk about it, we want to learn more about Marie because she's new to the pod and so she might be new to you. If you're not following her already on Instagram, you should be. But tell us about you, tell us about what you do.

Marie (00:41)
Yeah.

Alex (01:02)
where you do it and like your journey. briefly, how did you get here?

Marie (01:06)
Yeah, well, new to the pod as a guest, but not new to the pod as a listener and as a fan. So just have to make that distinction. All right, calligraphy journey in a snapshot. My mom actually got me a calligraphy set when I was 13 years old for Christmas. It was one of those broad edge sets that you get at Michael's. I just had a horrible habit, like every 12, 13-year-old girl.

Alex (01:11)
Thank you.

Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Marie (01:27)
was like scribbling my name and like write. I loved practicing my handwriting. Like I loved taking notes in class. So she was trying to redirect and channel that into like, okay, why don't you write on this and not on my important, you know, mail documents and things like that. But you know, I didn't take it like super seriously. And then in 2016, I was getting married and you know, saw all the pretty envelopes on Pinterest and thought like, oh.

Alex (01:37)
No.

you

Marie (01:53)
handwriting. kind of have a little bit of a background in calligraphy. I can make my envelopes look just like this and obviously that was not the case. It's not just pretty handwriting alone as we know. so yeah, envelopes went out looking not the way I wanted them to look, but that's okay. I still wanted to learn calligraphy and I wanted to actually take it seriously. And so I got a book I got some supplies. I started off doing brush lettering just like after work would come home. I remember one of my very first times

doing it was like practicing during jury duty. Like I just brought like my book and everything while I was waiting hopefully not get called back. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I've been doing calligraphy since 2017 and then end of 2021, I got an engraving drill. 2022 started doing live events and pretty much that's been my business ever since. I do a little bit of in studio work other than like

Cat (02:26)
Smart.

Marie (02:43)
you know, commissions, like I'll do some envelopes and some place cards and stuff, but I would say 99 % of my work is live events

Alex (02:50)
incredible. So you're full time, right? Just wanna, okay. Just for everyone listening, like I'm like, I'm aware I'm pretty sure you made the switch a year or so ago.

Marie (02:52)
I'm full time, yes, yep, yeah.

I did.

May of 2024, I left my marketing job. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's coming up on two years, which is crazy to believe. Every day feels scary. Every day. Like for me at least. Like scary in a good way. You know, my husband's also self-employed. So like I had the W-2 job with the benefits. And so now we're paying for all of that stuff, our health insurance, all of that on our own. So that's the part that feels scary. It's like, okay.

Alex (03:02)
Okay, cheers.

Ugh, time flies.

Cat (03:11)
Yes.

Alex (03:20)
Mm.

Marie (03:25)
I gotta get business, but at the same time, it's also that motivating factor. Like I can't just not have the luxury of just sitting and waiting for a client to find me. I have to go find my clients. I have to go network and be in people's faces. And so they don't forget about me so I can pay my mortgage.

Alex (03:36)
you

Oh yeah.

I think we're all very aligned on that, like, you do have to market yourself, you do have to put yourself out there, you literally can't sit at home waiting for people to find you, and yeah, it takes work. Especially when you're the one responsible for all your bills and your livelihood and all the other fun things in life. It's a lot.

Marie (04:01)
Exactly.

Cat (04:02)
Yep.

Marie (04:02)
It's a lot. It is a lot. And I feel like not that this is really the topic of what we're talking about today, but I feel like, you know, full time gets glorified. And certainly I, you know, I romanticized it when I was working a job and I was like, I just want to go full time in my business. And, you know, there are pros and cons to both. Like there are times where I'm like, God, life would be just so much easier if I just went back to like corporate marketing and got my paycheck every two weeks and my big fat salary and my benefits.

Cat (04:11)
Yes.

Marie (04:28)
could just do the events like when I wanted to. Like I don't really have weekends anymore, you know? That sucks. Like I love the events. I love my clients, but you know, I miss being able to like just do things on the weekend. I have to be more intentional about like, okay, I'm going to turn down a gig because I've already said I'm going to go, you know, do XYZ on the weekend. So there's, there's pros and cons to, know, having a job, having it being full time, you know, there's, I don't think there's any perfect world.

Cat (04:28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alex (04:52)
Well, and just being in charge of your day to day, like there are a lot of people who really benefit from having a directive having like an external motivator of like someone telling them what to do and how to do it and the plan and whatever. And that's when people say the same thing to me. They're like, like, wow, that's so nice to be your own boss. I'm like, first of all, yes, for me, absolutely. I'm me plus authority does not do well in any sense.

But it's constant work like you were always putting yourself out there you're responsible for everything and so

Marie (05:22)
Everything.

Yeah. 100%. I'm constantly setting up proposals from the couch at 9, 10 o'clock at night. Yeah, it doesn't stop.

Cat (05:29)
You know, literally.

Marie (05:31)
do love like owning my schedule in that way. Like going to Costco in the middle of day is pretty awesome. yeah, exactly. What were you going to say, Cat?

Alex (05:38)
Get that $1.50 hot dog.

Cat (05:44)
I was just going to say, feel like all of that leads up is like exactly why the conversation that we're going to go into today is so important about like how to price and position your pricing to support not just like the next bill or like the next thing, but really how to sustain your life and your business. So I'm so excited to really get into this conversation because I feel like there's been a lot of talk now about like

package pricing, but people I don't feel like understand what that really means and why that is so different than hourly. So I'm excited for everybody to get to learn from you today.

Marie (06:16)
Yeah, me too. This is such a necessary conversation. So I'm really glad that we're having it today, because I think there's going to be a lot of benefit from it. And hopefully it'll just open the door to this conversation in our community. By no means are we going to be able to exhaust every topic, but it's just a great entry point into having this conversation with the community writ large. So I'm excited.

Alex (06:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, no, I totally agree. And that was a great transition, So professional. as Cat said, we've mentioned it before. We've talked about switching because we used to price hourly. And Marie, I think you did as well, probably. Yeah, like we all did. And we've all kind of switched. I not we both. A lot of us have switched to package pricing.

Marie (06:40)
Thank you.

Mm-hmm. Yes, yep, yep, for a long time. Mm-hmm.

Cat (06:56)
We all on

this call.

Marie (06:58)
Yes.

Alex (06:58)
We all on this call

Marie (07:00)
The industry is moving.

Alex (07:02)
And I think it's a good direction to go in and like hold, you know, more firm in our boundaries and our pricing and all of that. And

the reason that you are on this is because you were sharing on your stories, which I think people might be noticing a trend that like if something's on Instagram, my chronically online and Cat's chronically online ass are like, we should talk about this on the pod. So if it's on Instagram and it's the conversation, we want to bring light to it because not everyone sees it or some people miss it. And also like it's, there's a reason why it's being talked about right now. So like there was a post

Cat (07:34)
Yeah.

Alex (07:36)
Circulating

the main like carousel point was you're not paying for my time you're paying for my talent and I think it's a very general vague thing to say

Marie (07:42)
Mm-hmm.

Alex (07:48)
But I think it's important, like you re-shared it and you brought some light to it of like, you're not paying for the hour, you're paying for the years it took me to look easy, right? This goes back to the, what was it? The Picasso story or whoever the fuck that was, like writing on a napkin, like you're paying for the years it took me. And you wrote, you wrote on your stories, you're paying for me to lead your brand activation, to own and optimize the guest flow experience so you can focus on other priorities, which, my God, so fucking true, to consult over which favor will work best for the allotted time, the guest count, your over,

Marie (07:58)
Hmm.

Alex (08:16)
overall

event objective. Like we are professionals, right? And you're paying for a brand activation strategist, someone who can write pretty with a drill. So like let's stop doing hourly rates in 2026. So I'd love you're, you're like snapping at your own. You're like, yeah.

Marie (08:19)
Mm-hmm.

Man, I was so so lost!

Cat (08:28)
You

Marie (08:32)
Whoever wrote that, she was on it.

Alex (08:39)
Okay, so before we get into the whole combo, I think we should go into like, what is package pricing? Because hourly pricing, pretty self-explanatory, you're pricing by the hour. If a client says, hey, we want you for one hour, you're charging for the one hour, they say you want it for three, four, five, whatever, you times it by that amount. So what the fuck is package pricing for anyone who might be new to the concept? And then we'll go into kind of like the nitty gritty of it after we kind of define it for everyone.

Marie (08:50)
Mm-hmm.

so package pricing, project-based pricing, however you want to call it. Sometimes it's called value pricing, value-based pricing, although I feel like that's too vague to me at least. But basically, is full scope pricing. time, of course, is one of the factors that you add in there, but it's not the only factor that you can price on. So you're taking in the full scope of the event, the project, what the client.

wants from you and also you're trying to anticipate the client's needs as well. And so you're going to ask lots of questions. Hopefully your form is really thorough or, you know, it's similar in your discovery process. It's thorough enough where you're getting all of those details. So then you're not just pricing based on your time, you're pricing on all of these different elements. Like I said, in the post, like you're pricing to lead a brand experience or lead, you know, if it's a wedding client, if it's, you know, corporate brand, whatever it is.

you're leading that experience, you're taking ownership of that experience, and so you're providing a higher level of value and service to the client, and so your pricing for all of that service should be reflective of all that work that you're putting in. So that's kind of high level version of what package pricing or project-based pricing is.

Alex (10:16)
Yeah, so instead of when someone emails you, you know, how much for these three hours you say, my rate is blank, you don't say my rate is blank per hour plus this plus this plus this plus this, you just include it all.

Marie (10:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

and I, the way I do it, this by no means does anyone have to do it the same way I do it, but every project is priced differently. Like I can kind of look at, you know, my intake form and kind of in my head, like get an amount, like, okay, I think for this, this is what I probably want to charge. But then I will like take my time, actually go through it, like price out all these different elements, assign quantifiable numbers to like all these different elements.

So then I can give them a packaged pricing and then outline like this is what is included in this price as well. And of course the time is amongst us.

Cat (11:03)
Yeah, so it's

not to say that even with a package price, part of that calculation is still an hourly rate. That's just not how you're presenting it to the client. still have that when you're doing your own calculation, like you said, that's one piece of the consideration, but then you're also considering maybe the time that you're going to hop on a console call with them. Maybe it's setup time. Maybe it's time that you're

Marie (11:14)
Mm-hmm.

Correct.

Cat (11:30)
Whatever steps that your process needs to take to be able to provide that high level of service, those are all the things that you're considering. Then when you're presenting your proposal to the brand, you're saying, is my one packaged bundle price that includes whatever it is that you include in your services, correct?

Marie (11:46)
Mm-hmm.

Correct, exactly. And from that, like, you know, if I'm sourcing favors, for example, like, that's not part of my hourly rate. That's part of the package pricing. Right. Exactly. So if I'm like, if time goes over, because here's the thing with like package pricing, I don't want anyone to think that like, just because you do a, like a fixed price means that if something expands the scope of the event of the project, that you shouldn't get paid extra for that additional time or additional services that you're providing. So

Alex (12:17)
Mm-hmm.

Marie (12:18)
I always know like what my hourly rate is going to be. Should time go over? Should I need to like, I had an event on Saturday, it went over by two hours. Fantastic for them. And you know, yeah, I I worked out well for them. I mean, yeah, exactly. But I also had to make sure they know like, okay, like, yeah, I'm here now. And we had a rate for what that scope of that four hour event was. But now we're adding on, you know, more time. And so, you know, I'm to bill them for that additional time.

Alex (12:30)
Fantastic for you. Love that.

Marie (12:47)
you know, after afterwards. So, so hourly is a factor. Time is a factor. But yes, to your point, Cat, it's you're giving them that all in one pricing. And then if something shifts, it expands the scope. And I don't know if that phrase sounds like off to people listening. It's something that gets talked about a lot when you work in like a marketing agency, that kind of world where you, so every time a client is reaching out to you and you're building that package for them,

You're building it based off of a scope of work. So you're saying, I'm going to do this, this, this, this, and this for this rate. Anything outside of those items that you bulleted expands the scope. So that's what I talk about. Like you're expanding that scope of work. So if they add on more hours, if they add on a second service, if they add on more than one favor, all of those things, therefore expands the scope of the work that you're providing, the service that you're providing. And so you should get paid for that.

Alex (13:39)
yeah. So what made you shift from pricing hourly to then doing package pricing? I know some of the reasons that I did, but I'd love to hear your take. ⁓

Marie (13:49)
Yeah. Well, I'd love to hear from you guys too. I'll share what I think. Yeah,

because I'm always curious, like how do people arrive at this? And I think it's probably we all have like a situation that probably you're like, hmm, that didn't feel quite right. I mean, I think everybody can probably relate to the fact of like there have been times where we've been woefully like underpaid for a job or, you know, you quote a certain amount and then you get home and you're like, never, it's never happened.

Alex (14:02)
Ha ha ha ha!

Cat (14:03)
More than one.

Alex (14:12)
Never. We are perfect.

Marie (14:17)
Yeah, exactly. I know.

And you know, sometimes it still happens. Like, I still get gigs. I'm like, dang, like, there have been, I've been doing more social events. And I did a quinceañera a couple weeks ago, this, and which is great. And I priced it more like a shower pricing, like how I would have priced a shower. I should have. It's a wedding. It is a wedding. It's a one. And I knew that because I've been to quinceañeras. Like, I

Alex (14:21)
Yeah.

Cat (14:35)
And it is not the same. It's a wedding.

Marie (14:43)
is literally a wedding. Like, you know, she is the bride. She has bridesmaids and groomsmen and there are hundreds of people and it's a huge venue and there's a big cake and there's dancing. Like that's a wedding and a beautiful piece of dress. Yes, exactly. It's a wedding. And so now I'm like, yeah, definitely should have priced that as a wedding. Live and learn. So, um, but to go back to your original question, Alex, so kind of two things come up for me. One is that

Alex (14:53)
Whoa.

Cat (14:55)
In a huge dress, it's like there's a timeline like

Marie (15:10)
Right around the time I was leaving my job, I did a corporate event. It was a multi-artist event. I did it hourly. I think it was like 200 to 25 an hour. And we ended up staying over a little bit because like it just ended up taking longer. And then I just felt like after that, I'm like, you know, we only made like 800 bucks from that, which sounds like a lot for a couple hours of work, but it didn't feel like that was the right amount.

you what I mean? It just didn't, like, I just remember like, this is a law firm. I know that they have budgets. I know that this venue costs money. I know that these favors cost money. I've been on that client side of things. So I know for a fact. don't know why I'm like, yeah. But it was like, but it's so funny because it's like, I kind of like compartmentalize. And so I left like my marketing world, like my client side work separate from like my business in that regard. And now I'm like thinking about this and I'm like,

Alex (15:49)
you have that. like, y'all got money.

Marie (16:03)
If I was hiring an agency to do this kind of work for us, there is no way they would have done it for that amount of money, you 800, 900 bucks or whatever it was. And I know these clients have this budget. And so that was, and I'm getting ready to leave my job. So I was like, okay, I cannot keep doing hourly rates. It's just not enough. And also I think like, if you send out like, oh, my rate is $700 an hour or whatever the case is, that sounds like.

You know, that sounds crazy, but if you say, oh, the package for this event is $3,500 and you get two live engraving artists, you get an assistant, get, this is, these are the things that we're going to be doing. Like that sounds a lot more palatable than like, you know, these huge high amounts per hour, if that makes sense. So that was kind of one thing. Um, and then the second one was that I actually had an event. It was a two hour corporate event. was 75 people.

I was like, okay, I probably should get another artist to do this with me. But I was like, I want the money. So the client told me their budget and it was $1,500. And so I was like, done. Two hours, $1,500 for 75 guests, I can do that. And like when they actually paid that, I was like, I just made $750 an hour for that event. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. So like those two things kind of combined together, was like, I...

Alex (17:15)
Up, up, up.

Marie (17:20)
do this. Like I can absolutely raise my prices. I know these clients can afford it. They don't bat an eyelash at it. Like of course there's always going to be clients that are working within a specific budget, but if they want the type of experience that I'm providing, if they want more than just you know again pretty writing, but like leading them in that brand experience, we have to be able to bump up our rates to account for that service that we're providing.

So they've got the budgets for it, they can handle it, and you should be paid for it.

Alex (17:49)
I think having that perspective too on the back end is so important, because I think sometimes we're only thinking about it from our perspective but like, for a brand or a corporation, the difference between $700 or $1,000?

Marie (18:03)
Nothing. It's negligible. It's literally nothing. Nobody is going to lose their job at XYZ Corporation because I spent $300 more. it's literally, I promise you. Like, I know. I'm saying this from experience because I'm the kind of person that would have gotten that invoice and you just go get it approved and it gets paid. it's not to say that there aren't budgets that, you know, that marketer or that event planner or whoever has to, you know, work within. They do have budgets, but...

Alex (18:13)
No.

Marie (18:29)
I had a client, actually last week, I was sourcing the whiskey glasses for them. They wanted their logo printed on them. And I gave them a range. And because it took them like a little bit longer to approve certain things and like go ahead and sign the contract, that meant that we had to do expedited shipping in order to get the glasses in time. And so I just told them like, hey, it's going to be, and that shipping wasn't cheap. It was expensive because these are, you know, nice quality. Yeah. So, you know, added like a couple hundred bucks, I think it was close to $200 more in shipping for it. And they were like, that's fine.

Cat (18:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Marie (18:58)
So technically they were over budget, but you know, they understand.

Cat (19:01)
they also understand

Alex (19:01)
But at the end

of it... Yeah.

Cat (19:02)
that process. It's not as personal to them as it is for us. just like, yep, we understand that as the logistics of running a business and timelines of how things work. They understand that business process of it.

Marie (19:04)
Yeah!

Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

Alex (19:17)
Yeah, that's such a good point because it really is so true that they need the artists, they need the services, they need the like glasses, the items, whatever, and they need it by a certain time. The client will pay that because it's what's gonna make the event, the experience, exactly what they need it to be. And so I think it comes, I mean it's always gonna come back to like

Marie (19:28)
Yeah.

Yes.

Alex (19:42)
marketing and branding and your messaging and stuff and like what are you actually providing? I think that's something to take into consideration as well

I think that's been a huge shift, think, for me, like switching over. Part of it was a similar experience of like, let's see how this goes. I am only working two hours, but I give the same rate and I just switched to this number versus hourly. What will happen? And kind of testing the waters a little bit and like no one had a fucking problem. And I was like, ⁓

Marie (20:03)
Mm-hmm.

I'm on with it.

Yeah.

Alex (20:15)
I could have been doing this the whole time, meaning like that extra hour I didn't have to work, like now that's in my pocket, holy shit.

Marie (20:21)
Yeah. Well,

Cat (20:22)
Yeah.

Marie (20:23)
exactly. Yeah. And I mean, it kind of makes you think about like the money you've been leaving on the table, you know? Yeah. Right. Right. And when you increase your rates and you do package based pricing, that frees you up from having to accept smaller paying jobs that you might not want to be doing. Like, I really don't like, oh God, I'm going to say this out loud. I really don't like engraving on perfume bottles. I just don't.

Cat (20:23)
Yeah.

So much money.

Alex (20:29)
So

much, so much.

Cat (20:44)
So here.

Alex (20:48)
my god, same. I just did it this weekend. I was like, wow, these are not cute.

Marie (20:53)
I mean,

it gets like there are obviously some bottles like have really nice glass and like enough space that you can actually like do a good job with it. But I just don't like, don't like getting like a bunch of different perfume bottles and also sitting in a mall like, you know, for.

Cat (21:07)
thing about how we hate retail.

Marie (21:09)
Yeah, I mean, I still do

Alex (21:10)
Could not relate more.

Marie (21:13)
retail gigs, but now my focus on retail gigs is more like a product launch or like an actual special event. I don't mind going into you know, a retail store for like holidays or something like that. or actually I don't mind it like when it's a slower period for me. Like I know like Jan and Feb are usually, it's a bill payer. It's a bill payer. So it's fine. Sometimes you take jobs that you need because you got to pay the bills. That's totally fine.

Cat (21:28)
It's a bill payer.

Yeah,

Marie (21:35)
like, poo-pooing that at all.

Cat (21:35)
no shade.

Marie (21:36)
Yeah, but I don't like having to do those.

Alex (21:37)
they were great.

they were great to like have as a like be- I don't want to say beginner experience, but like for me it was a beginner experience. Was starting in just one foot.

Marie (21:43)
⁓ no, yes, a thousand percent. okay,

Cat (21:47)
Yeah, to get your foot wet.

Marie (21:50)
total tangent here, but for any newbies that are listening, you see all the glamorous, like cool experiences, the PR influencer type of events, the corporate events, like whatever, and you're like, how do I get those? Those are the ones I want to do. Those will come to you. Please, please establish yourself doing these retail events because that is what is going to help you

move up to that next level. You need to learn how to interact with clients. You need to be able to kind of, you know, get experience of just engraving in public. You know, you need that and manage your workflow. Exactly, like that, yes. And it's fantastic experience. And those kinds of gigs are totally fine to price hourly for because you're not, you're not, generally speaking, I can't think of a single time where I've been hired for a department store where I've needed to source something or I've needed to do like a lot of different like back and forth.

Alex (22:18)
Yeah, figure out your process, your cadence.

Cat (22:18)
Yeah, manage a workflow like.

Marie (22:38)
with them, it's usually like they want you to come in and either it's like a free gift of purchase or it's perfume bottles or something. It's three hours, four hours, it's at your local mall. It's easy. Like that is an experience. Like do not poo poo those events. Those are fantastic. And just because you know, the artists that you look up to or, you you follow, you see them doing the things that you want to do in your business. We all started here. We all.

those retail gigs. like, it's pay your dues, get your experience in, and then work your way up to some of those other bigger brand experiences.

Cat (23:10)
perfect.

Alex (23:10)
and some people like

fucking love retail, so I just want to put that out there too.

Marie (23:13)
Yeah!

Alex (23:14)
We were just talking about this in the group chat, where someone's like, wait, I love retail because they love just chilling. They love chilling. They like the pace. Like they get to do like fucking all the all the cool shit. Yeah, they can draft. They can make it as pretty as they want. They could do the down strokes, all of it. So for them, fucking love that. For me, we're losing my fucking mind. So yeah, I

Marie (23:20)
It's so easy. Yes.

They can draft. Yes. That's right.

Yeah, yeah. Everybody's not a

Cat (23:37)
Yeah.

Marie (23:38)
personal preference. Yeah. And used to do acting in high school. It's like, there's no small parts. There's only small actors. You know what I mean? It's, it's kind of like that. Like there aren't small gigs. There's only how you think about it. like that for somebody out there doing those retail gigs, that is their bread and butter. They love it. It's easy. And like more power to you. That is amazing. Go get them. Cause they're out there for the taking. Yeah.

Cat (23:45)
Yeah.

Alex (23:47)
That's funny.

Cat (24:00)
Yeah.

Alex (24:00)
Yeah.

Cat (24:01)
Yeah.

Alex (24:02)
Yeah.

Cat (24:02)
No, but I feel like what you just went over to was perfect because I was curious. I was like, do we feel like everybody or every event benefits from a package price or like is there every time? I feel like that was helpful to hear an example of like, no, you aren't leading like they have already done the full concept. They already have all the favors. They literally just need you to show up, sit down, provide the service and leave. So that was like a perfect example of how hourly

might still be a good fit. one of the biggest differences I actually noticed when I switched to package pricing was people haggled me infinitely less. When I sent out an hourly, this is my hourly rate plus travel, all of a sudden it was like every email back was literally like, well, what if we only did three hours instead of four? And I was just like,

Marie (24:40)
⁓ yeah.

Alex (24:40)
I was hoping you

would bring this up. Yeah.

Cat (24:52)
Why am I inviting these people to haggle my pricing? And now I'm just getting into it with people in my email in a professional way, but I'm trying to stand my ground. No, I can't do three hours for your 500-person event. Now I have to explain this to you. The second I switched over to package pricing and I was like, this is how much it costs and this is all the things that's included, I had so many more people that were just like, yep, great.

On occasion, I'll still get someone that's like, ⁓ that's not my budget or whatever. But then it's my discretion to be like, I can move it around. I'm not kidding. Literally every email was like, well, let's do this amount of hours instead of this. And then what's the math if I do this? And I was just like, I'm wasting so much time on admin. And now I literally don't even want this job.

Marie (25:26)
Right.

Yes. my gosh. Yes. Yes. A thousand times. Yes. I completely relate to that experience. I found, I have found very much the same thing for me as well. when you do the back at package based pricing, because then it's like, here's the rate and here's what you're getting for it. And so they're not haggling over, you know, the timing or like, and like you said, you can definitely flex if you want to slash need to, you know what I mean? Like you can tweak things here and there, but ultimately if you're giving this sort of all in one

pricing to them, it gives them less like ammo to try and haggle and negotiate, you know. And look, if their budget is such that like they can't afford it, that's okay. That's, that's totally different. Then also for a lot of these clients, it just means that they don't have the budget for live engraving.

Cat (26:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Marie (26:22)
You know what I mean? At least for their event. It doesn't mean that we should go and under price ourselves. It means they need to go back and get more budget or they just have to say it. I do mostly brands and corporate events, but even for weddings, there are things that clients are spending tons of money on and they have to decide what is of more value to them. I think that personally speaking, I think that giving your guests

each one of them gets an individual favor that is customized and personalized to them that they are going to keep and love and cherish is more valuable than tons of flowers that are going to die and not go home with you. But if that bride wants a million flowers and wants to just give like, you know, a tchotchke that's going to get thrown in the donation pile, that is her choice to make that decision. And the same thing with corporate clients and the same thing with brands.

Alex (26:57)
Yeah.

Cat (27:09)
Yeah.

Yeah. And you're not going to convince that person. That's just not your client. If their value for that event is placed elsewhere, that is not a hit on you and your value and your worth as a business owner. And I don't think that our flex of the pricing should reflect that. I think you should be able to look at an inquiry in someone that is either outwardly or inwardly communicating to you

our value of this event is X, Y, or Z, don't devalue yourself because they're not valuing what you're bringing to that event to that level. It sounds to me like they're okay cutting this from their event. Whereas someone that does value that experience and what it's gonna bring to their attendees or their guests or their clients, whatever it is, they will have allocated budget appropriately.

Marie (27:41)
Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Cat (28:01)
for the most part. There are a handful of instances where they don't know what they don't know because even though you see all these events, especially in weddings, people don't know how much we should cost. There are people that just don't know and part of their discovery with you is going to be a little bit of that education. Again, that's not a hit on you and what you value. Some people are genuinely just trying to get a feel for how much something like that is. Same thing with a brand that maybe has not explored this before.

they're doing it for the first time, they might not have allocated budget for this event because they didn't know how much it was gonna cost. But it doesn't mean that the next event they do, now that they know your pricing, ⁓ I can budget accordingly now. So that's another thing to consider, I feel like.

Marie (28:41)
Yeah.

yeah, absolutely, for sure.

Alex (28:45)
And I think the education piece keeps being brought up too. I think we're all at a point where we've been doing this so long that we're pretty confident. And also we're, we're educating the client. And I think that's a really important part of this process as well. It's not just saying like, this is my rate. It's like, this is my rate and this is what's incorporated in that rate. And then having that value speak for itself in your reviews, on your website, on your social media, like all of those things.

Marie (29:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alex (29:13)
⁓

I have a question for people who might not be as confident, maybe the newer calligraphers or people who are like maybe not as seasoned as I think all of us have been doing this for full time for quite a bit now. two questions, two part questions, should they be doing package pricing number one and if they're if they should switch from

hourly to package? How do you feel like they could shift into doing that?

Marie (29:36)
Yeah. So I pretty much anything outside of like a standard retail event where they're like having you come into the store and grave bottles for three hours, I think that's totally fine to do like hourly. You don't need to do package based pricing for something like that. Anything outside of that, I would probably recommend doing like package project based pricing because there is some sort of extra factor involved that needs to be.

quantified and priced for. Even if you're not sourcing favors, there's still like we've been talking about all the admin work that you do with a client, the guest flow, you and I mean, you can do entire episodes of like guest flow alone because it's such a huge part of being able to manage an event. Even if it's a smaller event, it's not high volume. There's so much we know there's so much social work with the client, with the guests, but also with the client. And all of that needs to like

be factored into your pricing. So if you are if you are newer to engraving or doing live events, absolutely. outside of like your standard retail events, it's always a good idea to start thinking about package-based pricing. For those who have been doing hourly, for the second part of your question, for those have been doing hourly and want to start doing this, I would say the first thing to kind of from a mindset perspective is get comfortable with the fact that

⁓ not every gig and not every client is going to be for you. They're not all going to have that budget and that's okay. so get comfortable with sort of just like rejection. And also if you're getting a hundred percent of clients booking you, you're, you're absolutely like pricing too low. You know what I mean? Like you need to keep pricing so that like you're earning more per gig so that you don't have to keep taking, you know, smaller paying gigs that you don't necessarily want to be doing.

Um, but so that's the first thing is sort of just like that mindset work, working on your confidence, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. And there is a lot of discomfort in sending out a package for $3,500, $5,000, you know, things like that. It can feel uncomfortable to do that. However, you know, in doing that discovery process, you, that is where you learn what their priorities are, what is gonna, what this gig is going to entail, what their budget is hopefully, so that you can pull together a package that meets their needs.

And by itemizing it, by positioning the package in that way, it puts you in the position of being a leader and not just like a vendor. You are leading that experience for them. You know what I mean? So like, then they're like, I want to spend this money on this person because they're going to provide me with this excellent service and they're going to make my life easier at my event.

Alex (31:56)
Hmm.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. this this is a little bit tricky because I, so I think of it as like, for me, like I'm Leo, I used to be a team leader. I'm like pretty can have an opinion. I could take control. I could do the, you know, like used to be in special ed. I was I used to be a teacher. Like I can fucking take control when needed. Like I can manage chaos. I, I do have like,

Marie (32:19)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Alex (32:33)
I know, like I guess pause, because I think there are certain people that kind of just want to show up and do the work and leave and like they don't really want to do that whole leadership education thing and I think...

Marie (32:38)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cat (32:45)
or they're

newer and they haven't developed that skill set yet. So that's not a service that they're providing.

Marie (32:47)
They haven't developed it yet.

Alex (32:49)
Yeah,

I just have certain people in mind who have been doing it for a while, like that we know that like, they're like, yeah, I don't want to fucking lead a team of eight people to do this thing. So like, in that case, I do still feel like they should be pricing package wise. But I... Okay, yeah, so yeah.

Marie (32:55)
to it. Right.

Cat (32:58)
Yeah.

Marie (33:05)
So I have thoughts on that.

All right. So let's take your scenario. Let's assume it's like a multi-artist gig. it's hundreds of guests, short amount of time, you're going to need multiple artists. So if you are one of those people where you get that inquiry, but you don't necessarily enjoy doing that leading leadership work or just that client work, building up the goals, all that, you're like, it's more than I want to do. And you know that it's going to take multiple artists.

Alex (33:10)
Hahaha

Mm-hmm.

Marie (33:30)
That is when you go to whoever you want to work with and ask them like, hey, can we partner together with this? can't, or like even ask them like, did they want to take the lead on it? If you feel like this gig is gonna, if it, if it means you're gonna end up getting more money for it and you can kind of just show up and do that work, developing relationships with your local community of live event artists is key in so many different ways. I know you guys have talked about that like numerous of times on like networking and things like that.

Alex (33:58)
Yeah.

Marie (33:58)
It is

so important to develop your relationships and good relationships with the people in your market, like genuine relationships with them, because there are going to be times where they're going to refer gigs to you, or you're going to have to refer gigs to them, et cetera. And if there is somebody in your market, like I love doing this stuff. And this is because this is what I used to do in corporate market. I was a team leader. I was vice president of marketing communications. Like I know how to lead a team. I know how to lead client experiences. I know how to lead brand activations. Like give it to me. Yes.

Cat (34:17)
Right.

Relax.

Alex (34:26)
Yeah we're all like, let

us lead.

Marie (34:28)
Let me lead. I love doing

that. Actually, I I love pulling together proposals and doing the client experience stuff as much as I love being on site. It's totally different parts of my brain that's being used, but I love, love, love that experience. And so if somebody in the Philadelphia area is doing like, or wherever, like I'll travel, like wherever, we travel. We travel. Look, I got miles, girl. We could travel. So.

Cat (34:39)
same.

Alex (34:46)
Ha

Cat (34:49)
Wherever we travel.

Alex (34:50)
Yeah.

Marie (34:54)
If you are like, got this gig, I don't know how to do it, I need help with it, like let's talk or you know, reach out to somebody who you know, who you can work with on it. There's nothing wrong. In fact, it will actually help you potentially put together a stronger package and earn more for that job if you do partner with someone in your area and collaborate on it. Okay, so that's multi-artists. If it's like a solo gig and it just feels like it's a lot of work that you don't necessarily want to do,

Alex (35:09)
Mm-hmm.

Marie (35:22)
So two things is like get curious about what you actually enjoy about doing live events because you might be one of those people that just wants to do the retail thing and and that's totally fine. It also like let's say it's retail but you also like you want it to be your full-time gig. I don't know in every market if there's enough of like perfume bottle engraving events to go around where you can like replace a full-time income. So you might have to make concessions and say either I'm not gonna go full-time or

Alex (35:28)
you

Yeah, I don't know.

Marie (35:47)
I'm going to have to do some of these gigs where I do have to do more of that work. But every time you're doing more of that work, you absolutely should be getting paid for that extra work you're doing because all of that admin work, takes, it's a lot. It's just a lot of coordination. So that's kind of my recommendation on that slash opinions.

Cat (36:03)
Yeah.

Alex (36:05)
No, I love that.

I think that's important. I think relying on your network is really, it's so awesome to have other artists to reach out to. I will say, as someone who is similar, like a leader, I have the hardest time stepping back. I had an event with someone this week and usually I'm the one and then we switched and I could not shut my fucking mouth. I was like, my God, I'm so sorry.

Marie (36:19)
Yeah.

Oh. I'm the worst

person to bring if I'm the co-artist. I'm the best and worst.

Alex (36:34)
Yeah!

Cat (36:35)
Well even like when Alex and I

work together sometimes I'm like I want it set up like this.

Alex (36:40)
yeah, we like fight like sisters, cause I'm like, well, I think it should look like this and I think that's prettier. And Cat's like, no bitch, it shouldn't. This is my event. And I'm like, you're right. You're right.

Marie (36:44)
⁓ I know.

Cat (36:48)
You

Marie (36:50)
It's hard to step back.

I know it is hard. And that's, mean, that is like why it's so important for you to have really good relationships with those people in your area. Like I work with, I'm going to give a shout out to Emily from Calligrafili. She's my biz bestie. Like we do pretty much all of my multi-artist events. She's my go-to for it and vice versa. And like we're at the point where both of us, like if we get like an inquiry, we'll like text the other person, like, did you get this inquiry? You know what I mean?

Alex (37:15)
Yeah.

Cat (37:15)
Same.

Marie (37:16)
We're,

I mean, we are so much like co-workers that like when people, people really do think, I'm sure you guys get this all the time, people think it's like one business, you know what I mean? Like you guys work for, like it's your company together and it's like, we're separate, but you know, we are so much, we love each other and like you need that person where you can like, you know, crash out with them, you know? And like, you can be like honest with them, like, no, I don't want it like this or like, let's just do something different, you know? So, yeah. Yeah.

Cat (37:29)
But we love each other.

Alex (37:40)
Yeah. No, I'd like, I appreciate that shit. I'm like, tell me to fuck off, like, which

I think is what makes me and Cat a good partnership.

Marie (37:45)
Yeah. Emily tells me all the time to stop being

like a client people pleaser because I do run into that where I'll like, it's fine. Fine. That's fine. We could do that. We could stay late. We could do this. And she's like, girl, I'm tired. I want to go home.

Cat (37:59)
Yeah. And it's nice

too, like when you get like, like Alex, I'll be like, did you get this one? Or like, I think I got that one too. Okay. The first thing we asked was like, okay, what did you quote? Because we're also not trying to be in a race to the bottom of the barrel. Like I'm like, man, like, I didn't price that right. Like, I hope you get it. Or like, if I get it, I know for next time. why are we undercutting people and like racing to the bottom? What are we doing everybody?

Marie (38:09)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Alex (38:14)
Yeah.

Marie (38:25)
my God. So much this.

Alex (38:25)
Yeah.

Marie (38:28)
Because a lot of artists don't realize this. When you are trying to come in as like the lowest quote or like just what you think the client will be willing to pay for, you are inadvertently undercutting the market. Not just like other calligraphers, but like you're setting the bar. You know what I mean? And so if a client, I've done this, unfortunately. I've had clients where in the past when I was doing hourly,

Alex (38:42)
Yeah.

Cat (38:46)
Inhale.

Marie (38:51)
That was like, I gave them my hourly rate and then they come back year after year and they want to do it and they expect to pay the same price and it's like, no, actually, that's not my minimum anymore. ⁓

Cat (38:59)
Yeah. Well, I also,

Alex (39:00)
Yeah.

Cat (39:02)
don't know how you build, most of us are trying to build a brand that screams like, high value luxury to use a very oversaturated term, but like, sorry, I don't know how you build a luxury brand with a reputation of being the cheap calligrapher. Like that's all you're doing is branding yourself as the cheap option.

Marie (39:11)
Yeah.

Alex (39:17)
charging 100 an hour.

Marie (39:19)
Yep. I put it.

Cat (39:24)
and it just cheapens every, like cheapens your brand, cheapens your bat, like, and you're going to have to dig yourself out of that hole and that's gonna feel twice as painful.

Marie (39:33)
Yeah, put it on a t-shirt and sell it. because hang it in the Louvre. I mean, like said. Like, raising to the bottom cheapens your brand and it cheapens the experience that you're providing. And you're resentful. The client also undervalues the work that you're doing. They think that they're just hiring you for time and cute writing. And no, no, no, no, no. Like, that's not what's happening here. Yeah, 1,000%.

Alex (39:34)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Cat (39:55)
Yeah, and if you think

they don't talk to each other, like especially in LA, like you think these brands don't talk, especially the luxury brands, they all hop all over the place. Like they're all talking to other people, just because you take a dumpster diver rate over here, like you think this next person isn't going to expect that over here because they are. They also do talk and it's, it truly is going to be a hole that feels impossible to dig out of

Marie (40:15)
Yeah!

Cat (40:21)
just to have that client, like, great, you have a bunch of clients that don't want to pay you a livable rate. Like, I don't think that's the flex you think it is.

Marie (40:30)
No, it's not. I, okay, I got to figure out how I want to say this. I have heard of people intentionally going lower so that they can get more gigs, right? You know, so that it's like, so they can be that. And I know it really, it really bothers me. And that's, mean, honestly, that was kind of what I had in mind when I was kind of going off in my stories back in December because

It just,

Alex (40:56)
You're like, here's the sub-fruit.

Marie (40:58)
it just, it just, yeah, it really bothers me because they are cheapening the value of the service we provide. Like it's not even about me. I don't necessarily even want the gigs that they're going after necessarily, but it's, it's just like, hate that that's what they're doing to our market. You know what I mean? And it, because that retailer is going to talk to that one. They are literally in the same mall next to each other. Of course they talk, you had an engraving artist. How much was that?

They talk to each other. Literally, I was in Glossier over the holidays and I forget what store it was across the street, but it was like, was it Urban? I don't know. It was something. It was another retailer across the street. She came in, she got candles engraved and they were talking. was like, we want to do something like this in our store. I know for a fact, she followed up with my client and was, you know, probably asking like, how much did you guys pay for that? they talk, these clients do talk. So.

If we're gonna race to the bottom, all you're doing is negating your ability to create a living income from the work that you're doing. You're undermining your regional market. You're undermining all of the other artists in your area, artists that you're gonna have to work with at some point, hopefully, if you're actually trying to grow your business, and you are cheapening your brand. So it's just, there's no benefit from that at all.

Cat (42:04)
Mm-hmm.

Alex (42:04)
Well,

and on that note, speaking as people who know what burnout feels like, it is not fucking sustainable to do that. Like even me charging what I think is a pretty high rate.

Marie (42:11)
What?

Cat (42:11)
No.

Marie (42:17)
Yeah.

Alex (42:17)
And

like, keep fucking trying. I've been trying to price myself, which like, champagne problems, but like, we've been trying to kind of like, price ourselves out of certain things, because we're like, okay, what's the line? how high can we get while still maintaining semblance of balance in our life, because we can't fucking say yes to everything. And

It's way more sustainable even if you double like this is what I always say to people when they're like I don't know I'm like you could double your rate I say this to like a photographer you can go from a thousand dollar for to an event from two thousand dollars to invent Maybe half your clients go I can't afford that anymore Guess what? You're still making the same fucking amount

Marie (42:54)
And you have more time. More time. Yeah.

Alex (42:55)
and you have more time and you just doubled the amount of time you had. You know what I

mean? So it's not saying that everyone should double their price, but you have to think of how that expands like the other things, right? Like yes, it's scary and it's way more sustainable to have less things because I know for myself, and I was saying this in another episode,

Marie (43:05)
Yeah.

Alex (43:16)
I kind of burned myself out the end of July. I had like just had Comic Con and then I had like a couple events after and there was one event that I really burned myself out even more and then it led into the next one and I was like kind of grouchy and not, didn't do well dealing with.

Marie (43:30)
Yeah.

Alex (43:33)
the client as much as I wanted.

it like bleeds into your other events, right? Like, so you don't have the mental or the physical capacity to even be your best self, to even provide that value in the pricing and all the things that you're saying that you're gonna provide. So in the end, it works out better for the client, it works out better for you, and it works out better for the guest experience if you're charging something that will lead you to have enough jobs.

to sustain you as a business as well as sustain you as a human being. Does that make sense? Did I say that? Okay.

Marie (44:03)
Yeah. Yeah. I'd make total sense. I mean, I

would rather have one gig that paid $1,500 than three gigs that paid $600 each because think about all that travel. It is not just the three hours you're on site. It's usually the travel. It's the prep. It's sitting in traffic. It's paying for parking. It's all of it. You know what I mean? It's like you could make that roughly that same amount of money in one gig that is far more enjoyable for you. And then you actually have more time left over.

Q4 was like the biggest, I feel like it was like 50 % of my income happened in Q4 last year, know, which is great. was fantastic. But like in October, I literally had, I got sick. I got sick because I was doing so many events and there was like one, oh my God, yeah. Well, that's the other thing.

Alex (44:37)
Wild.

go and a right now.

Cat (44:51)
can't really. ⁓

Alex (44:52)
Ha ha!

Marie (44:53)
goes back to like, you know, like, when you have a full time job, yeah, you have sick time, like you have sick leave, you can actually like go be sick and still get paid, you know, hopefully you still get paid. Um, versus like, I had to show up for an event and luckily it was engraving so I was, could wear a mask the whole time, but like, I felt horrible. I was achy, I was tired, I don't, I did not feel like engaging with the guests, you know what I mean? Luckily it wasn't super, I was doing a wine opener, so it wasn't like super complicated. I could write really small.

It was a fundraising thing, so they were all having fun, getting out on the dance floor. They were leaving me alone, so it worked out well. But it was an hour and half from my house, so I had to drive in traffic. I had to drive all the way back home. I couldn't find an open coffee shop to get a cup of tea afterwards. It was not fun. And I probably worked myself, I burned myself out. That's why I got sick. I was doing too much. So yeah.

Cat (45:39)
Yeah.

Marie (45:48)
It is there when you price well for your jobs, you are able to take less jobs. You can take fewer jobs. You can say no, and you can scale in a way that is actually meaningful and intentional. There's always gonna be times where you're like, ⁓ I might need to take a job because I gotta pay them bills. But I don't have to have another Q4 like I did this past year. I can still make that same kind of money.

And I don't have to do as many gigs in order to get that kind of income.

Alex (46:17)
And I think that takes time, right? just the building confidence and if you're newer and you're not a seasoned, it does take time and it takes practice and it takes rejection and it takes refining your messaging and refining your branding. it isn't overnight. And I think it's a process to get to this point where you can do that. And I think yeah, that's it. It's a process.

Marie (46:20)
yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cat (46:38)
Yeah,

well, I feel like people want to skip through all of these moments of adversity that really shape your confidence as a business owner. That's where you start seeing people wanting to take shortcuts and copying somebody's brand, or they just want an email template for how you... Those are all shortcuts, and that's not to say you can't use resources like that, but the confidence comes from the reps.

Marie (47:04)
Yes.

Cat (47:05)
reps including getting ghosted, reps including having to practice that negotiation back and forth in emails. You truly are not going to build your business muscles without that. And so I just really encourage you, if you're in an earlier stage in your business, even if you're in a later stage in your business, stop trying to skip past the things that make you a gritty business owner. That is what makes it sustainable. So just stop looking for shortcuts.

Don't feel like you have to make every failure happen. That's the whole point of why we created this podcast, why Marie is putting resources out there and we're responding to people in DMs because we don't want people to get taken advantage of when they're building those reps. But you're not gonna build a sustainable business just skipping past all of that. And I know people wanna do that, but you can't, you really can't.

Marie (47:57)
You have to crawl before you walk. You have to walk before you run. You have to run before you can fly. And skipping past that, yeah. Yeah. mean, but like trying to have like an adversity free business doesn't exist. you have to learn those lessons. have to, I don't even say like failure or mess up because there is no, there, a failure doesn't actually exist.

Alex (48:03)
We're

Marie (48:23)
Like that is a made up thing. There is literally no set. If a client ghosts you, you did not fail because you overpriced. And you don't, first off, when they ghost, you actually don't have the data to know why they didn't talk to you. And for some people, like, right?

Alex (48:36)
It could be bad at emails.

Cat (48:38)
to

get ghosted. That means I don't need to do anything else.

Alex (48:39)
Hahaha

Marie (48:41)
Well, also like, so necessity is the mother of all invention. So I was getting, I still to this day get ghosted the most on my wedding clients because in my market, they have not gotten to a point where they want to carve out that much budget for wedding engraving. And wedding engraving to me is the top amount that they, that's the most you should be charging for. You know this cat, because it is so much more.

Alex (48:55)
You're shopping.

Cat (49:02)
Yeah, I get ghosted on

more than half of my wedding inquiries. All these weddings I work, I get ghosted all the time. And I don't know the reason. It could be that they're inquiring 18 months out. But also, let me tell you how many of them come back three months out and realize they have budget. Y'all need to stop taking things so personally when you don't have the information to do it. I'm also going to say that.

Marie (49:05)
Yes!

Yeah.

Yeah, say

it, say it, say it. And it's your brain that's bullying you when you get ghosted. Your brain is telling you, you overcharged, you're not good enough, whatever, whatever. You're filling in those gaps. It's cognitive dissonance. You're filling in those gaps. But I'm telling you now, you have to have a conscious conversation with yourself that like, you don't have the data to fill in that gap. So what can you do about that? Because it does, I mean, for some of us, does sting, especially if you put in a lot of time to pull that packaging pricing together.

Alex (49:40)
Ha ha ha!

Marie (49:51)
for me because I was getting ghosted so much on weddings and I didn't want to continue putting even in 15 minutes of like effort to like price every time out. So I really have created like starting packages for weddings. I send them my pricing and I'm like, if these starting rates, starting rates work for you, come back to me. And then we can, then I will scope your project and I will give you pricing. I am not giving custom pricing for weddings anymore to get go to it because it's just not worth my time and it was annoying me. So.

Necessity is the mother of all invention. I created new processes in my business so that I don't have to feel like I gave up something in my time, in my energy, effort, whatever, just to get ghosted by somebody who doesn't have the budget for wedding inquiry And that's the stuff that you have to learn through that rejection, through those, going over those rough areas. Then you create a process where you're no longer annoyed by getting ghosted. It just happens. It's a fact of life.

Cat (50:48)
And you're not investing, you're not over investing yourself, even putting together a package where I think that's where people get connected is like mentally they've already spent so much time on it that now in their head they're like, I'm working this event. And then when they get ghosted or they get turned down, then it's like twice as hard of an impact because mentally, even subconsciously, like they have already committed themselves to that. They've already gotten excited about that. Whereas like if you have a process, whether it's a template or something that helps create some distance and

Marie (50:53)
Yeah. ⁓

Cat (51:17)
just like has that a little bit of a boundary. It makes it so much easier to just be like, huh, all right, well, it didn't hear back, archive.

Marie (51:22)
Yeah, archive and move, keep it moving. Like you don't have to chase these people down. Like if you have a flow that's set up where you can kind of just automate it a little bit, like you don't have to chase those people. Like if they want to work with you, they will come back to you. You know, there are times where like I sent out a proposal and it feels very promising. And so sometimes you do have to do a little bit of that. Like, hey, did you forget about me? But.

Alex (51:42)
Yeah. Where are you at?

Marie (51:44)
Like, yeah,

I just don't really have the energy or desire to like chase after people, especially if all they're trying to do is just get pricing upfront. And so the more that you can streamline it, the more that you can create that package pricing, you know, just sort of like at least starting rates that you can send out to someone, it will free you up from that emotional anguish that you're feeling about getting ghosted or about like, like you said, like feeling so connected to these projects because you're putting so much energy into it before they've even

you like while you're doing discovery. Yeah.

Alex (52:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, great points.

Cat (52:18)
All right, well,

I feel like we have covered so much ground and I feel like this is gonna be such, honestly, like a blessing to our audience and hopefully they're able to pull out all the nuggets that we are and yeah, I also know that you potentially have a resource coming out for people. Do you wanna talk about that really quick?

Marie (52:22)
So much.

Yeah, yeah. So after having this conversation on Instagram and in stories about pricing and um, I, you know, I, I've decided that I'm going to go ahead and put it together. A mini course. I know some of you guys heard me talking about doing a course a while ago and I haven't launched it. Sorry. Um, yeah, don't bully us. We got jobs to do. We got lives to live. But I do want, like I genuinely, I don't want to just like tell people raise your rates and, and like, you know,

Cat (52:54)
Don't bully us.

Marie (53:06)
just leave you hanging and figure it out on your own. Like I get it. it does really help when you have resources. Now you still have to do your own work. You're still going to have to like figure this out in your own business. But I'm to put together a mini pricing course. I have a pricing calculator that I use in my business. So that will sort of be like the, you know, ⁓ but the thing that you get your digital product, but it's more than just the calculator. Like do not buy this thinking like, I just want her calculator and I'm going to keep it moving. No, you need to learn how to use the calculator. You need to learn how.

what to actually price for and how to quantify those things. So I'll walk you through all of that. We'll talk about proposals. So I don't know when it's going to get done, but I do. This is truly something that I really want to do in my business. ⁓ So, and now it's a little bit slower this time of year anyway. So I'm going to kick cracking on it. Hopefully this.

podcast interview will kind of give me that motivation to like get off my ass and get started working on it. You can bully me a little bit. Sometimes I do need like gentle nudging. Yes, gentle nudging. We'll do some gentle nudging.

Cat (54:00)
Gentle nudges, gentle.

But do you

have an email list or something, like a wait list that we can link in our show notes for people?

Marie (54:10)
Yes, yeah, you can go to maidenseptember.com slash pricing. So that'll take you to my

Alex (54:15)
amazing.

Cat (54:15)
She already

has it set up. She's got the URL and everything.

Marie (54:19)
set up yet, but when the podcast airs it will, it will, and it's just my email list. It's just a short way to, an easy way to get to my email list. So yeah, it will be there. I love that we can be so realistic and cash with each other. Like I would love to just be that person that's like, everything is already ready and I'm ready to debut. And I'm just like, that's just not how life is. It's just not.

Cat (54:21)
But she will.

Alex (54:32)
I

Cat (54:40)
Couldn't be me, couldn't be this podcast.

Alex (54:41)
No.

Marie (54:43)
someone else hyper type A. It is hard.

Alex (54:45)
It's hard. Like when you're working on your own business,

like you have to decide what's for your business, what's for other people's business, you know, cause you're by doing this, like you're pouring into other people's businesses, which is amazing. And we love that we're here for the community and you know, what's the ROI on it for you? Cause yeah, you still got, you still got things.

Marie (54:53)
Yeah.

Really? Yeah!

I have to make it and then I have to go out

and sell it and that's its own work and its own labor. And it's not always like the thing that I really want to be doing either. Like I love my business. I love working with my clients. I love being on site. I also love our community. that's why, like that's what's motivating me for this is like, I do want to have to give these resources out to this community because we need it. We need to have these conversations. And I think it would be helpful if we were all kind of working from like a similar playbook.

At least, know, when we're just talking about pricing in general, like everybody's pricing is gonna be different, but if we can move past hourly rates and start thinking holistically about these events that we're working, it really helps elevate the amount of money that we can be making in the community. And then we can start scaling our businesses more and more. So, yeah.

Alex (55:37)
Yeah.

Hell yeah. More full-time artists, I love it. ⁓ So, yeah, we are so over starving artists and we're so into thriving artists is basically our goal here. We are very into thriving artists. So on that note, we're gonna link where to find you, but just tell us your Instagram one more time so that everyone can follow you.

Marie (55:55)
Okay.

You're a very independent artist.

Yeah.

It's made in September, M-A-I-D-E-N, September like the month.

Alex (56:18)
love it. And I'm Alex, signs of our lives.

Cat (56:20)
And I'm Cat of Cat Lauren Calligraphy. Thanks for keeping up everybody!

Alex (56:24)
Thanks for keeping up. Bye!